DEIMOS
Reticence was a mask now, a pretense, for all the mourning fathoms clawing and blurring behind his eyes. No matter how many times he’d curled and coiled into the refrain of this was not supposed to happen, it had. He couldn’t forgo it. He couldn’t walk around it. He couldn’t nonchalantly stare into the void and wish for time back. For a moment where he didn’t ask about doors, about ways to guard them all.
He should’ve just left it all alone.
But so determined, so desperate, to ensure everyone was safe, he hadn’t thought to consider, to weigh the options, of just how detrimental some safeguarding could be. His livelihood had always been about fortifications, about ramparts, about strength and durability; and he’d watched hundreds of others bound against the defenses, lose their lives in the process. In war, he could justify the outcomes: some had been too slow, not capable of outwitting, outmaneuvering against their opponents. Some had been too inexperienced, incapable of measuring up to another soldier. Some had been unfortunate, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This was none of those things, because it’d been his fault. His door. His tool to ensure monsters couldn’t come scrambling through, couldn’t reach their claws into his citizens.
In truth, they hadn’t even needed the demons outside. Merely him; brave and foolish and stupid enough to believe he could conquer and outwit LongNight.
His eyes went to Bastien after giving Clemente over to his people, and he clenched his jaw, moving forward, attempting to maneuver somewhere other than within himself, where the old, primordial wounds had begun to unwind. “We can move her to another room.” His voice wasn’t cold, but tightly measured, precise so nothing broke in the chaos, too accustomed, too attuned, to the weight overwhelming his chest, his shoulders. Not out in the open, where the rest of the citizens would flock and gasp, and he wandered, a monolithic opus to naught, naught at all – hands grasping hold of the first knob, the first door, that was empty.
He should’ve just left it all alone.
But so determined, so desperate, to ensure everyone was safe, he hadn’t thought to consider, to weigh the options, of just how detrimental some safeguarding could be. His livelihood had always been about fortifications, about ramparts, about strength and durability; and he’d watched hundreds of others bound against the defenses, lose their lives in the process. In war, he could justify the outcomes: some had been too slow, not capable of outwitting, outmaneuvering against their opponents. Some had been too inexperienced, incapable of measuring up to another soldier. Some had been unfortunate, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This was none of those things, because it’d been his fault. His door. His tool to ensure monsters couldn’t come scrambling through, couldn’t reach their claws into his citizens.
In truth, they hadn’t even needed the demons outside. Merely him; brave and foolish and stupid enough to believe he could conquer and outwit LongNight.
His eyes went to Bastien after giving Clemente over to his people, and he clenched his jaw, moving forward, attempting to maneuver somewhere other than within himself, where the old, primordial wounds had begun to unwind. “We can move her to another room.” His voice wasn’t cold, but tightly measured, precise so nothing broke in the chaos, too accustomed, too attuned, to the weight overwhelming his chest, his shoulders. Not out in the open, where the rest of the citizens would flock and gasp, and he wandered, a monolithic opus to naught, naught at all – hands grasping hold of the first knob, the first door, that was empty.
i'm in the mood to dissolve in the sky
